“A picture is worth a thousand words.” That is now a phrase that Fred Kaddu, Uganda director and Restoration Home founder, will be able to own as he portrays the Restoration Home girls…Passion Partners purchased a camera with Fred this afternoon for the Restoration Home! After purchasing the camera, our team enjoyed a meal with Fred and Ronald, who has been our consistent driver since our arrival. Fred and Margaret worked ferociously together at the dinner table to install batteries and a memory card to ensure a working camera! A smile was painted across Fred’s face as he took his first couple of photos. Our Passion Partners team finds our camera as such a helpful tool in exposing the stories of our Ugandan and Kenyan partners to those in the U.S. We are thrilled that Pastor Kaddu will now be able to document moments, memories, faces, stories, emotion, and progress of the 42 girls at the Restoration Home. We are already looking forward to seeing the photos they share! It truly is an honor to serve and equip our partners with the tools that they need to carry our their passion. *Becca Vinson is a fellow with Passion Partners through the Nashville Fellows Program. Becca is currently in Africa with other members of the Passion Partners staff.
We could not be more excited & honored to announce that Brandon Heath & Michael Boggs will be the special guest performers for our Inaugural Celebration & Benefit Dinner on September 27, 2013!! The evening will begin at 6:30 pm at West End Community Church and will feature our programs in Africa as well as best-selling author & world changer, Bob Goff!! Tickets are now on sale at www.passionpartnersbenefit.eventbrite.com!!! Please join us at for what is sure to be an amazing night to celebrate our partners!!
Oli Mulungi means “you are beautiful” in Lugandan, the language spoken in Kampala, Uganda. 42 radiant faces make up the sisterhood at Restoration Home. Each face has a name, each name has a story, and each story plays a significant part in the ultimate STORY-GOD’S STORY. I said “oli mulungi” at least 100 times during my short visit to Restoration Home. It was one of 3 sentences I learned in Lugandan and each time it rolled up out of my heart, off my tongue and into the ears of a daughter of the King, I felt like I had stepped into my destiny. To sit beside the next generation on the other side of the world and joyfully share the truth of who God says that we are was Holy ground for me! It was like I could feel God smile as HE filled my mouth with yet another truth about who these precious girls are to HIM. HE kept whispering, “tell them they are radiant, My inheritance, My child, a temple of the Holy Spirit, light, salt, a city on a hill, My ambassadors, etc…” God was on a roll, bragging on His daughters and HE wanted me to tell them in every imaginable way that they are the apple of HIS eye! HE sees their past, present and future and HE...
It’s that time of year. I am returning to Africa for 3 weeks…with my 3 little people, 3 new staff members, and 3 sweet sister-friends, each and all co-laborers for the Kingdom.God has been ever faithful to continue to clarify my vision for Passion Partners and brought exceptional servants whom I have the opportunity to shepherd, responsibility to steward, and privilege of bearing fruit through their giftings–from Nashville to Nairobi and beyond. This week, we will begin our journey to Uganda and Kenya. Our time will be divided between the Restoration Home in Kampala, the Clinic in western Kenya, the J-Project in both countries & a conference with more than 700 girls in Kibera, Nairobi…and visiting a brand new site & meeting partners in Masindi, Uganda! As Executive Director, I’m committed to annual site visits to collaborate with our partners and cultivate future development. Passion Partners is committed to walking alongside our partners as they walk out their call and their passions. That is our mission. We provide funding. We provide leadership. But the primary motivation behind everything we do is extending the tangible, manifest, Hope of the Gospel. Passion Partners BUILDS COMMUNITIES: Health Care. Clean water. Food. Education. Restoration. Sometimes it presents in relief. Many times it is in development. They are both conduits to the Gospel. Deed & Word. Neither...
Allow me to introduce Margaret Callahan, the newest addition to the Her Passion & Passion Partners team as the Strategic Development & Project Manager for Africa. After living in Africa, herself, I can see the depth of her experience transcends her hands and reaches the heart of others. Welcome Margaret! Candice (widow, mother & Executive Director, Passion Partners) When helping… HELPS!! I joined the Passion Partners team just over 2 weeks ago and my mind is wrapping its way around the calling of this ministry… to BUILD COMMUNITIES on the foundation of CHRIST… all for the glory of God. I have previously been in ministry stateside and in Africa and have seen firsthand that it can be so easy for helping “to hurt” (and not “help”). But the more I learn about Passion Partners and our international staff and the mission that they live out each day, the beauty of actually helping overwhelms me. I have not met them face-to-face (yet) . . . so I must imagine what their days look like. For some of our partners, they are ministering to teen girls – counseling them, encouraging them, providing a way for them to finish high school when there was no way before. For other partners, they are providing medical treatment for basic diseases that would have led to death...
Peter Abungu, Passion Partners Kenya Director & Founder of Swahiba Youth Networks, was once a small boy in the poverty stricken village of Siaya. He attended school there. He lived with his Grandmother Joanne there. His roots run deep there. But one thing that had never been there was medical care. The closest fully functioning clinic was a 45-minute drive – nearly a ten-hour walk . . . and there is rarely an automobile in Siaya. Those of us in the developed world are unable to identify with the lack of accessible medical care, a necessity in our eyes, but a luxury for millions of others around the world. Unfortunately, Peter could identify, personally, with the destructive implication of no medical care. In 2009, Peter’s uncle contracted malaria and because there was no first-line medical care within the community, he died on his way to the nearest hospital. He was one of thousands who lose their lives in Africa to a treatable illness, from a lack of basic health care. “Could his death have been prevented?” someone asked. And because the answer was “yes, if there had only been a medical clinic in the area,” God gave Peter the vision to bring His hope, plan, and future to the community of Siaya. After discussing the likelihood of building a clinic in the...
“I’m starving!” How many times do we say that throughout the course of a day? Skip breakfast on a busy morning, and we’re starving by 11:00. Only have a salad for lunch, so we’re starving by dinnertime. We say it lightheartedly, although well aware that we are certainly not starving. In fact, most of us have no idea what starvation really feels like, but we can be sure that a growling stomach isn’t all it entails. What would it really feel like to try and function all day, every day…hungry? Had we been born in Africa, we’d have entered the world with an estimated 1 in 3 chance of facing that reality, of being chronically malnourished from birth. Hunger pangs and a growling stomach would be the least of our worries. Studies have found that malnourished children have reduced brain activity and impaired attention, as well as delayed verbal and motor development, impaired intersensory integration, and severely reduced academic performance. When it comes down to it, in order for a child to develop properly and even have a shot at succeeding in school, they simply can’t go hungry during the day, much less everyday. Our aim at Passion Partners is to build communities, and we believe that feeding children, giving them a chance to focus, engage, and succeed in school, is an...
